Organizer clarifies meaning of Confederate flag at monument

BOSTON (AP) — The Confederate battle flag found attached to the Boston memorial honoring black Civil War soldiers last weekend wasn't an act of defiance by a flag sympathizer, but rather a protest.

Stephen Allsop tells The Boston Globe (http://bit.ly/1HrRWyM ) that he and some friends went to the memorial honoring Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment on Sunday to burn the Confederate banner and honor the soldiers who inspired the 1989 movie "Glory."

He says the group burned one flag, then were told by police to leave the area. They left a second Confederate flag attached to the memorial.

A Lowell woman who saw the flag after Allsop's group left thought the flag was an act of disrespect, so tore it down and threw it in the trash.